Stick-slip melting of a boundary lubricant between two rigid surfaces with nanoscale asperities

With a simple mechanical analog of the elastic tribological system, the friction of two rough surfaces is studied using the model of first-order phase transitions. The surfaces rub under boundary friction conditions in the presence of a lubricant layer in between. Stick-slip motion is considered, which is due to periodic phase transitions arising between kinetic friction conditions. It is shown that when rubbing surfaces are rough, a time-varying domain structure with a spatially distributed order parameter occurs in the plane of friction during motion.